


Decisions

by kesktoon04



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Death, F/M, Gunshot, JJ - Freeform, Major character death - Freeform, Pain, Spencer Reid - Freeform, criminal minds - Freeform, jennifer jareau - Freeform, spencer x reader - Freeform, x Reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 05:55:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20286502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kesktoon04/pseuds/kesktoon04
Summary: Spencer will stop at NOTHING to have his way. What happens when his was is the most dangerous one?





	Decisions

You stare down the shadowed barrel of a .45 pistol, heart slamming in your chest, breaths deep and measured as you watch it level over your chest.

“Get out of the way.”

Harsh words, even harsher with their companion drawn on you, but you don’t listen, instead planting your feet, looking up into the familiar brown doe eyes you love.

“Or what? You’ll shoot me?”

“If you make me.”

Chin raising, hand resting on your own holster, though you’d never draw your gun on Spencer, something both of you know all too well, you glare at him. “Liar.”

“I will.”

There is nothing in his expression to suggest otherwise, to indicate that he’s lying. A shiver of fear runs up your back, twisting and curving and weaving through your actions, but you mask it with a clenched jaw and a held back snarl. “God, Spence, pull it together. You’re unraveling.”

He does not—or cannot, you can’t tell anymore—hide the shake in his hands, the barrel of his .45 trembling with his tight chest. His jaw shifts, teeth grinding as his glare burns into your hard gaze. He knows this is wrong. Knows this is stupid. Hotch and the others and SWAT are only ten minutes away. You can both wait, can hold the unsub in his house until backup arrives.

Spencer speaks, voice controlled but barely, fraying with each words that falls into the cold night air. “Get out of the way. Please.” The final word is tacked on like an afterthought, as though if he’s polite, you’ll step aside and let him waltz alone into a house filled with deathtraps.

“So you can throw your life away? Yeah, that’s exactly what I want. You to die in there just cause you couldn’t wait for backup.”

At this, Spencer’s a statue, only his mouth moving as he speaks. “Get out of the way, now.”

You cross your arms, fingernails trailing over the cool metal of the gun’s grip as you move. He won’t shoot. Not you. “No.”

“I’m serious.”

A flare of resentment flames through your ribs, twisting around each one, fueling the anger and desperation growing in your chest. “So am I.”

October’s chill has nothing on the frost building on the words and looks you share. It must seem almost comical to any bystanders, to anyone not scared away by the screech of the siren and the shotgun blasts that tore through a car window only fifteen minutes earlier.

But now you stand opposite the man you love, chin raised, arms over your bulletproof vest, heart pounding in your chest, and it is anything but comical right here.

Spencer opens his mouth, shuts it, then thinks again and spits his words at your boots. “Let me pass.”

“What in the hell is so hard to understand?” The words come through grit teeth and a swell of panic in your chest, one that you can no longer hide. One Spencer must notice if the way his eyes flicker to the sudden shift of your weight indicates anything. A moment of vulnerability, a reminder that no matter what you do, Spencer will always see through it to your true intentions.

You shove the feeling from your gut, burying it under the anger and frustration and terror that’s fueling you now. “There’s no way in hell I’m letting you pass, and that’s that. Understand?”

Spencer white knuckles the pistol grip, head tilting, jaw flinching in frustration, words clipped and voice short. “And if he gets away? What then?”

“He won’t. He wants a fight here, on his grounds, on his terms. We can’t give that to him.”

“Maybe you can’t.”

You pause at the soft words, at the sudden trace of terror mirrored in Spencer’s eyes, hidden under the layers of reserve and anger. “What?”

“You can’t. But that doesn’t mean I can’t.”

“Spencer, no. You are not going in there until we have backup. That’s final.”

“He and I are both geniuses.” He sighs, shifting weight to his other foot, gaze falling on the house to your left for a moment before returning to you. “Look, if we go in there, you die. It’s simple.”

“Thanks.”

“Not like that. You just—you don’t know him like I do. You don’t understand him.” His voice drops, looking back at it again, searching the windows for the face that is certainly watching the ongoing exchange with glee. “I do.”

“That’s ridiculous,” you say, though you hardly mean it. Your arms fall from your chest, the urge to reach forward and touch him taking over, but he’s still pointing a gun right at you, still has an anxious edge to his movements, so you stay in your spot on the sidewalk, shoulders sagging as you study his dark expression. Shame in the planes of his face, anger in his eyes. He doesn’t want to be like this, doesn’t want to see himself so clearly in such an evil person. No one does. But for Spencer, it always seems to hit a little harder.

“I could be him,” Spencer chokes out, words broken like they got caught on the way out. “I could.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“But is it?” He suddenly focuses his gaze on you, hands twisting tighter around his pistol. “Statistically speaking—”

“Spencer, no offense, but I don’t exactly give a damn about statistics right now. You aren’t him, and you never will be.” You give in this time, taking a half step forward, hand outstretched, reaching for his arm to comfort him.

Wrong move.

Spencer tenses at this, freezing, a statue, eyes falling from yours, but he doesn’t stumble away, not like you expected. Instead, he lets you step closer again, lets you rest a hand on his cheek, lets you push the pistol from your thigh, off to face the sidewalk instead. Much safer.

“Spence,” you say, one hand wrapping around his that holds the gun, intent on slipping it from his grip, “you’re not him.”

His gaze rests on the tip of your chin for a few seconds, wavering, before he finally manages to meet your eyes. “I’m so scared of losing you.”

His words are breathless, accompanied with a swallow and a pleading look. Let me do this, he seems to be saying. Let me protect you.

A thumb over his cheekbone, you shake your head softly, words nearly as gentle as your touch. “You won’t, Spence. I promise.”

He shuts his eyes, breath shaky. “I wish that were true.”

Before you can ask what he means, what he’s thinking, he’s leaning down, closing the space between the two of you, kissing you. Desperate, warm, hand tracing up your side and curling in your hair. His kiss is conveying something, saying something important, something you think through the haze of kissing him you should understand.

You realize too late that he’s saying goodbye.

The fire rips through the back of your thigh, and you’re not sure if it’s the pain or the echoing gunshot that registers first

Spencer grabs you as you cling to him, lowers you to the grass, not a trace of regret in his eyes, only a strange, dark look, as though mourning something he’s sure to lose.

“You should have moved,” he murmurs surprisingly gently, fingers circling the new hole in your thigh, ensuring that he missed the artery. “I wouldn’t have had to do this then.”

“I—I don’t—” You reach for your thigh, mind blanking, stomach churning as you feel blood seep into your palm. Your own blood. Because of Spencer. Oh God.

He glances at you, registering your shock, your confusion. “It will heal, don’t worry. You’ll be back to field work in weeks.”

“But you—” you begin, unable to finish. Everything’s fuzzy and dark. It’s hard to breathe. Oh God, what happened? Oh God.

Oh God.

Spencer grimaces as he shoves himself away from you. “I’m sorry.” He pauses, staring at you, at your wide eyes and open mouth. With a twist of his mouth and an expression you can’t quite read, he reaches forward, hesitates, then withdraws his hand again, curling instead around the gun.

No, you think as Spencer backs away. No, you need him. You need him. You’re hurt. Spencer’s supposed to fix this. Spencer. Spencer come back.

“Spencer,” you choke out, chest tight, pulse fluttering.

He doesn’t look back.

You turn, mouth half open, watching him jog away, into danger, into death, but your words won’t come on command and your legs, they feel funny when you try to stand, like they’re going to wobble and turn into goo in a minute.

You press your hand against the gunshot again, fingers curling into fists, mouth filling with bile at the heat of your own blood. This can’t be happening. It can’t.

Oh God, Spencer shot you.

Grey static nips at the edges of your vision as you sink onto your side, head against dirt, ear tickled by long blades of dying grass. Spencer shot you.

Spencer shot you.

You are vaguely aware that the sudden chill in your hands and feet is from more than just the chill in the air, that likely shock is already settling in, making itself at home within you.

You look up, blinking, trying desperately to knock the static from your eyes. Spencer needs you. He needs you. Idiot though he may be, he needs backup. He’s at a disadvantage facing this unsub in his own fairground. Without backup, he could stumble over a trap or be cornered by a sudden attack or be stabbed without any warning.

With the shock setting in, it’s impossible to block the images, the visions that flash by. Shots of Spencer lying motionless on the floor, head twisted wrong. Thoughts of him screaming, dragged apart by rabid dogs. Visions of him crawling away, whispering your name, begging for help before the unsub gets him and drags him back in.

You shove yourself back onto your knees, tears burning at the pain in your thigh. Spencer needs you. He needs you.

You make it onto the tips of your feet, hands balancing you on the sidewalk.

Spencer needs you.

You roll back onto your heels, one hand pressed against the gunshot wound, the other wobbling off to the side, a weak way to counterbalance your weight. Terror spikes in your chest at a sudden sound, a quick snap, unusual in the otherwise quiet neighborhood. Still, you push yourself all the way up, screaming at the strain in your leg, eyes clenched so hard stars float in your vision.

Spencer needs—

The explosion shakes you to the side, arms flailing for any grip as you reel to the side, leg screaming in protest. You aren’t sure when the scream tears from you, when the ball of flames that burst through a cracked window process. Your knees scrape the ground, blazing as the skin over them folds into the concrete. Your hands do the same, pain worsened by the blood already covering your hands.

What the hell just happened?

You think that for a minute, you just stare up at the final swelters of flames, blinking like they’re the sun and you’re a dumbfounded caveman. But the, somehow, reality wriggles its way through the shock quickly coating your thoughts. Spencer is in there. Oh God. Oh God, no. Not Spencer.

Not Spence.

You scream again, shoving yourself to wobbly feet, world spinning, ground quaking, stomach boiling in unrest. Spencer.

He’s your only thought as you take a step forward, toward the house, toward the love of your life.

Spencer.

Spencer.

Spencer.

Then, in the dark shadows of the doorway, you see a face, contorted into an ugly grin, twisted like it doesn’t belong there, like it’s unnatural to exist there.

You aren’t sure if the gunshot took all your hearing or if you have the explosion to thank, but there’s a buzzing, one that keeps growing louder.

“You—I’ll shoot you,” you say, hands clumsy over the gun’s grip. Spencer. Where’s Spencer?

The wicked grin widens, lighted by the moon as its owner steps forward, leering eyes raking over you. His mouth moves then. Words? You don’t know, can’t tell. Everything’s so blurry.

So blurry.

You yank futilely at your pistol. Glued in? Stuck? It won’t come out. Won’t leave its holster.

Spencer, you think. Where’s Spencer?

The man shrinks suddenly, falling into the shadows again, though his grin returns, taunting you. He lifts his hand, and you think you’re going to be shot, that this is it, that you’ll finally run out of time.

But then nothing happens, something just glints in the moonlight.

You squint, willing your thoughts to work, your mind to focus.

Then it does, and you desperately wish it hadn’t.

In the man’s hand hangs a familiar watch, one you’d picked out only half a year back, one with an engraving you know by heart.

Spencer’s watch.

You work up a scream, a shout, anything that will remind him that you will be the one on the opposite end of the gun when he dies.

The man just shakes his head, door shutting behind him.

You scream again, throat raw. It hurts. Your hands and knees ache. Your thigh throbs in agony, and all you can do is scream.

Spencer. He will not take Spencer.

You take a step forward, nearly falling as you do, searching the shadows for the man, but he’s gone, disappeared back into his cave to wait out another player.

You groan, hand falling to the back of your thigh, surprise coloring your emotions at the feel of blood on the front now. You’re bleeding too much. Even in shock, you can remember that much.

Oh God, are you going to die here? You and Spencer both?

The thought hits you, a moment too late. That was Spencer’s watch. That means… that means Spencer’s dead. Your eyes fall shut, burning with tears, burning like everything else on your damned body. Buzzing filling your ears, deafening you.

Spencer’s dead.

The smell of flowers overwhelms you, and you’re vaguely aware of the feel of a hand on your back.

JJ.

She’s saying something, shouting in your ear, but nothing’s working. You can’t hear, can’t quite look up at her, can’t keep the ground straight. The sidewalk tilts, falling sideways.

God help you, Spencer’s dead. Doesn’t she realize that?

The last thing you manage to say before your head smacks the concrete is Spencer’s name.


End file.
